Treatment of Chronic Anemia With Epoetin Alfa in Elderly

Chronic Anemia is common among elderly. Given their somewhat non-specific nature, the clinical symptoms of anemia are often difficult to attribute directly to the anemia itself. However, it is known that anemic older adults are at an increased risk of mortality, disability, higher risk of falls, poorer quality of life, worsening cognitive function, increase hospitalization risk, and increased healthcare utilization than their non-anemic counterparts. Yet so far, there have been no treatment studies to demonstrate the benefits of correction of chronic anemia. Epoetin Alfa (Procrit) is a manufactured form of a naturally occurring hormone that is given as an injection by a medical professional to stimulate the bone marrow's production of red blood cells. This study is to explore, can chronic anemia be corrected with epoetin alfa and does the subsequent correction lead to an improvement in fatigue, quality of life or mobility among elderly. Overall this is a 32 week treatment study. In this study, participants with chronic anemia will receive either Epoetin alfa or placebo (saline injection) under the skin for 16 weeks. After 16 weeks the participants who were receiving epoetin will be switched to placebo and those who were receiving placebo earlier will go on now to receive epoetin alfa for 16 weeks. At the end of 32 weeks we will compare, if epoetin alfa corrected the anemia, how individuals felt in respect to their fatigue levels, quality of life and did mobility improve during the study.